Latest / The Stealth Archives / Episode 6: Dishonored — A City Built for Assassins

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Episode 6: Dishonored — A City Built for Assassins · The Stealth Archives

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  Speaker 1: Imagine you're standing somewhere you're not supposed to be. Just
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  Speaker 1: beyond the next corner, someone is looking for you. You
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  Speaker 1: have no reason to believe they will kindly look the
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  Speaker 1: other way. What you do have is a moment to think.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Stealth Archives. I'm John Smith. Tonight we're
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  Speaker 1: opening another file from the history of games that made
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  Speaker 1: quiet decisions feel enormous. Our subject is the layered city
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  Speaker 1: of Dunwall in Dishonored. And beneath the familiar images and
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  Speaker 1: famous names, we're searching for a deeper answer. Why does
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  Speaker 1: this particular idea stay with players? Dunwall is a city
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  Speaker 1: of rooftops, disease, industrial machinery, and secrets tucked behind locked doors.
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  Speaker 1: In Dishonored, released in 2012, the player steps into the
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  Speaker 1: role of Corvo Atano, and discovers a world where stealth
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  Speaker 1: can become almost supernatural. You can move through a space
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  Speaker 1: like a conventional infiltrator, or use powers that make architecture
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  Speaker 1: feel negotiable. The city is not merely a pretty setting.
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  Speaker 1: It is an invitation to experiment. It can be useful
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  Speaker 1: to separate the character's fantasy from the player's work. The
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  Speaker 1: character may be a legendary thief, an elite operative, or
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  Speaker 1: an unstoppable vigilante. but the person playing still needs to
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  Speaker 1: read a room and decide what to do next. This
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  Speaker 1: gap creates an engaging tension. The fiction promises competence while
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  Speaker 1: the game asks us to earn it. When a plan succeeds,
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  Speaker 1: we briefly feel that we deserve the reputation the story
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  Speaker 1: has given the hero. Dishonored draws from an immersive simulation
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  Speaker 1: tradition associated with games such as Thief and Deus Ex.
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  Speaker 1: The core idea is that a mission is not a
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  Speaker 1: single correct solution hidden behind a door. It is a
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  Speaker 1: place containing overlapping systems. Guards move, security devices react, and
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  Speaker 1: alternate routes reward observation. Instead of constantly telling you what
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  Speaker 1: to do next, the game frequently asks what kind of
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  Speaker 1: person you want to be within its world. The best
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  Speaker 1: design feedback often arrives in miniature. A guard pauses. A
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  Speaker 1: sound grows louder. A meter changes slightly. None of those
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  Speaker 1: signals needs to halt the game with a tutorial. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: they tell the player that the world noticed something. Good
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  Speaker 1: feedback makes experimentation practical. You can test an idea, watch
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  Speaker 1: the reaction, and adjust. Without that conversation, success may feel
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  Speaker 1: accidental and failure may seem inexplicable. With it, players learn
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  Speaker 1: the system's personality. Blink, the short-range supernatural movement power, is
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  Speaker 1: a wonderful example of mechanics reshaping perception. A balcony becomes
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  Speaker 1: a route. A wall becomes a temporary obstacle rather than
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  Speaker 1: a final boundary. A guard standing between you and a
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  Speaker 1: destination can be bypassed without a fight. Once players understand
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  Speaker 1: movement in three dimensions, they begin looking upward and sideways
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  Speaker 1: for possibilities a conventional corridor might not offer. The camera
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  Speaker 1: angle changes the questions a game can ask. First-person perspective
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  Speaker 1: gives proximity and uncertainty. Third-person perspective helps players judge movement
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  Speaker 1: around a character. An overhead view supports planning across a group.
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  Speaker 1: A side view can make information wonderfully clear. No single
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  Speaker 1: viewpoint owns the genre. Each trades one kind of awareness
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  Speaker 1: for another, shaping how much the player knows and which
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  Speaker 1: risks feel most dramatic. Before we move further, keep one
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  Speaker 1: thought in mind. The camera may show a fictional place,
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  Speaker 1: but the uncertainty is completely real to the person making
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  Speaker 1: the decisions. That is the special trick of interactive storytelling.
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  Speaker 1: We don't just hear about a risk. We measure it, choose,
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  Speaker 1: and discover the outcome. Sometimes the outcome is graceful. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: it is an absolute disaster. Both tell us something useful.
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  Speaker 1: The game's chaos system ties some consequences to how missions
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  Speaker 1: are completed. A violent approach and a restrained one can
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  Speaker 1: contribute to different conditions in the world. It is not
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  Speaker 1: a simple equation that every individual action produces an instantly
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  Speaker 1: obvious reward. Instead, the broader design gives moral weight to
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  Speaker 1: play style. That creates an interesting tension. A player may
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  Speaker 1: have the power to eliminate a problem, yet choose not
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  Speaker 1: to use it. Stealth can also make us aware of
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  Speaker 1: our own assumptions. We expect an opponent to behave one way,
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  Speaker 1: a door to lead somewhere, or a tool to solve
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  Speaker 1: a familiar problem. When the environment responds differently, we have
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  Speaker 1: to reconsider. That's often the most valuable point of a
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  Speaker 1: good challenge. It doesn't merely test a practiced routine. It
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  Speaker 1: asks whether we understand why the routine works and can
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  Speaker 1: adapt when circumstances change. Dunwall tells stories through more than
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  Speaker 1: its main plot. Side streets, overheard conversations, apartments, posters, and
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  Speaker 1: industrial spaces suggest how citizens survive under pressure. The plague
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  Speaker 1: and the political atmosphere create a sense of a city
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  Speaker 1: under strain. When you discover a hidden entrance, you're also
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  Speaker 1: discovering a tiny part of that society. Exploration becomes an
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  Speaker 1: act of reading a fictional place. Another hidden strength of
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  Speaker 1: good stealth design is how it encourages self-directed goals. The
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  Speaker 1: mission may simply say, reach the exit, but the player
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  Speaker 1: decides to avoid alarms, spare every guard, or collect evidence
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  Speaker 1: along the way. These personal challenges can make the same
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  Speaker 1: environment feel fresh without any change to the official objective.
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  Speaker 1: The system supports a kind of private authorship. Players aren't
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  Speaker 1: merely completing the task, they're defining what a satisfying completion means.
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  Speaker 1: There's a reason players compare different approaches to the same mission.
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  Speaker 1: One person may teleport across rooftops, avoiding almost everyone. Another
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  Speaker 1: might possess an animal, crawl through a narrow gap, or
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  Speaker 1: use distractions to divert attention. The details vary, but the
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  Speaker 1: thrill is similar. the designers constructed a set of rules
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  Speaker 1: broad enough for a player to invent an answer that
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  Speaker 1: feels personal. But let's not pretend there's only one correct
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  Speaker 1: way to play. Some people want a flawless, untouched run.
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  Speaker 1: Others improvise, make noise, scramble behind cover, and somehow escape.
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  Speaker 1: Those experiences can both be memorable. In fact, the gap
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  Speaker 1: between what we planned and what actually happened is often
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  Speaker 1: where the best stories begin. A well-built system makes a
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  Speaker 1: mistake interesting instead of making it the end of the fun.
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  Speaker 1: That flexibility is a major reason players return to these
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  Speaker 1: worlds years later. And there's another layer here. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of the work in a stealth game is invisible. Players
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  Speaker 1: notice the exciting escape, not the countless small rules that
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  Speaker 1: made it believable. Who can see? What makes a sound?
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  Speaker 1: How suspicion grows? When a search ends? and which doors
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  Speaker 1: leave room for a second plan. Remove those rules and
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  Speaker 1: the drama becomes a trick. Make them understandable and the
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  Speaker 1: player starts believing in the world. That freedom also creates
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  Speaker 1: responsibilities for level designers. If every rooftop is useful, the
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  Speaker 1: world must remain legible. If powers can bypass hazards, those
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  Speaker 1: powers still need costs or limitations. If a non-lethal path exists,
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  Speaker 1: It has to be interesting rather than merely tedious. Dishonored
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  Speaker 1: often succeeds because the environment, tools, and consequence systems are
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  Speaker 1: in conversation with each other. Pay attention to the relationship
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  Speaker 1: between a tool and a problem. A gadget is satisfying
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  Speaker 1: when it suggests several possibilities, not when it simply unlocks
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  Speaker 1: a door marked with the gadget's picture. Creative use lets
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  Speaker 1: the player feel like a problem solver. You might combine
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  Speaker 1: a route, an object, and an enemy's routine in a
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  Speaker 1: way that seems obvious only afterward. That's a sign of
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  Speaker 1: good systemic design. The solution belongs to the game's rules,
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  Speaker 1: yet still feels like your discovery. The greatest secret in
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  Speaker 1: Dunwall is not a hidden collectible or a forgotten room.
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  Speaker 1: It is the way the city changes when you change
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  Speaker 1: your intentions. On one visit, a building is an obstacle.
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  Speaker 1: On another, it is a shortcut. On a third, it
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  Speaker 1: might be part of a quiet story you almost missed.
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  Speaker 1: That's why Dishonored can reward repeated play. The place stays
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  Speaker 1: recognizable while the choices create different experiences. Think about what
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  Speaker 1: happens when a player returns to a level for the
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  Speaker 1: second time. The environment may contain the same doors and enemies,
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  Speaker 1: yet the experience can be transformed by knowledge. A risky
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  Speaker 1: corner becomes routine. A hidden passage becomes a preferred route.
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  Speaker 1: a noisy surface becomes something you anticipate. This is a
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  Speaker 1: different sort of progression from collecting more powerful equipment. The
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  Speaker 1: player's memory is the upgrade, and that makes replay surprisingly satisfying.
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  Speaker 1: That brings us to the end of tonight's archive. The
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  Speaker 1: lesson isn't that every game should force you to hide,
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  Speaker 1: or that every mission needs a perfect plan. It's that
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  Speaker 1: games can make attention itself feel heroic. A little patience,
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  Speaker 1: a good question, and the courage to act without knowing everything.
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  Speaker 1: Those are surprisingly dramatic ingredients. I'm John Smith. and you've
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  Speaker 1: been listening to the Stealth Archives. If this story changed
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  Speaker 1: how you see a familiar game, carry that curiosity into
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  Speaker 1: your next mission. Until next time, stay curious, stay quiet,
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  Speaker 1: and remember, every silent step has a story.